Raamdeo Agrawal is an Indian businessman, stock market investor, and Co-Founder and Chairman of the Motilal Oswal Group.
Wiki/Biography
Raamdeo Agrawal was born on Friday, April 5, 1957 (age 66 years; in 2023) in a village near Raipur, Chhattisgarh. His zodiac sign is Aries. After completing his schooling in Raipur, he moved to Mumbai to pursue higher education. There, he pursued his B.Com at Bombay University. He completed his chartered accountancy in 1983.
Physical appearance
Height (approx): 5′ 8″
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Black
Family
Raamdeo Agrawal was born into a middle-class Marwari family hailing from Rajasthan.
Parents & Siblings
Raamdeo Agrawal’s father’s name is Ramgopal Agarawal. He has five brothers, Karoon Ramgopal Agarawal, Vinay R. Agrawal, Sukhdeo Ramgopal Agarawal, Govinddeo R. Agarawal, and Satish Agrawal, and two younger sisters, Anita Anandmurthy Agrawal and Suman Agrawal. Sukhdeo Agarawal is a marine engineer.
Wife & Children
Raamdeo Agrawal is married to Sunita Agarwal. Together they have a son named Vaibhav Agarwal, who is a Fund Manager at Motilal Oswal Asset Management and Founder of Teji Mandi. Vaibhav is married to Vedika Karnani (Agarwal).
Raamdeo Agrawal’s wife, Sunita Agarwal (left), with Achyuta Samanta (Founder of KIIT)
Raamdeo Agrawal’s son Vaibhav Agarwal
Career
Agrawal began his career as a sub-broker at the Bombay Stock Exchange in 1987, crowding the halls and shouting orders under the open protest system. While talking about his start in investment journey in an interview, Agrawal said that once his brother Sukhdev wanted to save his extra income of Rs 4-5 lakhs, and he suggested him to buy shares instead of putting the money in a bank deposit. Sukhdev handed over the responsibility of developing the money portfolio to Agrawal. Managing his brother’s money helps Agrawal how the market works. In 1987, Motilal Oswal and Raamdeo Agrawal founded Motilal Oswal Group a small stock sub-broker firm.
Raamdeo Agrawal and Motilal Oswal
As sub-brokers, they were able to build a portfolio of only 10-15 lakhs till 1990. After that, they used all their earnings to buy BSE membership. During the Harshad Mehta Bull Run, they earned Rs 30 crore in 20 months by investing Rs 15 lakhs. Eventually, the company began offering a variety of services, including investment banking in 2005, private equity funds in 2006, and mutual funds in 2010. Later, the company turned into a financial conglomerate by entering wealth management, housing finance and portfolio management services ( PMS) too. In FY16, MOFSL earned a revenue of Rs 1,055 crore and a net profit of Rs 163.32 crore. By 2017, Agrawal held 36% of Motilal Oswal worth $900 million.
From left to right, Senthil Chengalvarayan, Raamdeo Agrawal, Saurabh Mukherjea and Ratnesh Kumar
One of Agrawal’s most epic bets was on Hero MotoCorp (later Hero Honda) where he invested around Rs 10 lakh in shares in 1995 at Rs 30 each. He held it for the next 20 years, until the share price rose to Rs 2,600 per share. He sold the shares in 2015. At that time, his stake in Hero MotoCorp annually generated a dividend income of Rs 3-4 crore only.
Award
Raamdeo Agrawal has been awarded the Rashtriya Samman Patra by the Central Board of Direct Taxes for his consistent track record of highest integrity in tax payment for a period of 5 years from FY95-FY99
Net worth
According to Forbes, his net worth in 2018 was $1 billion, but he was dropped from their list of billionaires in 2019.
Facts/Trivia
- Interestingly, Agrawal and Oswal lived in the same hostel in Mumbai while studying accountancy, but both became friends later.
- He is a voracious reader. In an interview, he listed the books that made him a better investor. In addition to fanatically reading Warren Buffett’s annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, he named the books Common Stocks and Extraordinary Profits by Philip Fisher, Value Migration by Adrian Slywotzky, Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta, and The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham.
- He has authored several books such as Wealth Creation Thoughts, Corporate Numbers Game (with co-author Ram K Piparia), and The Art of Wealth Creation.
- In 2005, Raamdeo Agrawal’s son Vaibhav was kidnapped by Rahul Tyagi and his henchman Sanjeev Sharma. Vaibhav was abducted from his hostel in Kota, where he was preparing for the Indian Institute of Technology entrance exam. The kidnappers lure Vaibhav by saying that they have been sent by his uncle who is a doctor in Pondicherry and ask him to come with them to the Bansal Institute for guidance. The kidnappers had demanded a ransom of Rs 10 crore, but the family agreed to pay Rs 3 crore for Vaibhav’s safe release. It took the police 15 days to rescue Vaibhav after they arrested Jai Kumar alias Bittu, the 22-year-old driver of the kidnappers, who was trying to escape after collecting a ransom of Rs 3 crore. Vaibhav was given drinks laced with sedatives and taken to Delhi, then Dehra Dun, and then Kahtuli before finally being rescued from Ghaziabad following a joint operation conducted by UP, Delhi and Rajasthan police. Allegedly, it was Vaibhav’s ex-girlfriend Amisha Agarwal who told Tyagi about Vaibhav. Amisha was Vaibhav’s classmate at DAV College Muzaffarnagar. Later, she married one of India’s richest MNC executives, Paresh Vaishya. The couple lives in the Samudra Mahal building in Mumbai’s Worli area, where stockbroker Ramdev Agarwal also lives.
- In 2021, Agarwal, his wife Sunita, and son Vaibhav, together bought a luxury sea-facing duplex apartment at Samudra Mahal in Mumbai’s posh neighborhood of Worli for Rs 46.29 crore.
Categories: Biography
Source: SCHOOL TRANG DAI
